


Come a Little Closer, Darlin'

by hiddencait



Series: Welcome to Vengeance [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, F/F, F/M, M/M, Saloon owner Phil Coulson, Women Being Awesome, Women saving themselves, barmaid Darcy Lewis, bounty hunter Natasha Romanov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 09:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3114692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/pseuds/hiddencait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha just wanted a quiet drink in her favorite saloon with her favorite bartender. Shame things never go smooth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come a Little Closer, Darlin'

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selenay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/gifts).



Natasha sauntered into the Bullseye Saloon, ignoring the stares from the out-of-towners who’d stumbled their way in to the saloon after arriving on the stage or the train. She didn’t mind them looking; it would be a different matter if they were fool enough to try to touch, of course. But looking, that was mostly harmless. The red-headed bounty hunter scanned the interior of the surprisingly clean taproom. As always, she couldn’t help but notice just how much cleaner the Bullseye was when compared to the many other such establishments she’d entered in other little towns. Hell, even some of the larger hotels out in New Orleans hadn’t kept up this kind of civility.

It was a testament to the determination of the man who owned the place. She’d call it ‘grit,’ but damned if Phil didn’t allow even a speck of it to last too long in here. Natasha shook her head at her own woolgathering as she moved to the bar. The man himself was nowhere to be seen, nor was Phil’s lover and Natasha’s longtime friend and occasional partner, Clint.

The pair were likely checking in on their fosters, she guessed. Phil had caused quite the stir when he took the boys, young men really, off the orphan train. Most had expected the sickly one, Steve she reminded herself, to die from his illness all too quick. Seemed the desert air out here was agreeing with him, though. He hadn’t been sick again since recovering the week after he came to live here. Bucky, the older boy, had mentioned it was the longest Steve had gone without being ill in a very long time.

Strange how a town like Vengeance often turned out to be the best place for the cast out strays like those two boys. Hell, like Natasha, though she rarely let herself muse on that fact.

“Mornin’ Miss Natasha,” the dulcet tones of one of Phil’s other strays drew Natasha’s attention back to the bar and to the brunette behind it. Darcy Lewis had taken to Vengeance like one born to it, strolling into the Bullseye and declaring she could certainly work there, and when would Phil like her to start. The owner had been bemused, but had hired her on, not solely because Clint had liked her cheek, though Natasha knew his lover’s opinion had likely tipped the scales in Darcy’s favor.

“I know I’ve said you can call me Tasha, if you like,” Natasha said softly, ignoring the ranch hand who was trying to sidle up to her left side. She turned her back to him, not-so-subtly making her lack of interest clear as she accepted the glass of whiskey Darcy slid across the bar to her. It wasn’t the cheap stuff, either; Darcy tossed her a wink as Natasha sipped carefully. Phil’s private stock, she determined. Now whatever had she done to earn that? “Something you’d like to tell me, Darcy?”

The curvaceous brunette shrugged and grinned. “Nothin’ in particular, _Tasha._ ” She poured another glass for herself and then glared at the ranch hand who’d apparently missed the clue that Natasha wasn’t interested. “Hey, you buying or not? If not, you can go back to your little friends at the table over there.”

He didn’t seem impressed by Darcy’s instructions. “Oh honey, I’m buying all right. Just waiting for the little lady to decide what she’d like me to buy.”

His leer up and then down Natasha’s relatively scanty garb made it clear just what he expected to be purchasing. Granted, it wasn’t nearly as skimpy as it would be if she’d been working a bounty, but Natasha knew her corset and tight breeches were likely showing far more of her figure than when compared to prim and proper women that gadded about Vengeance. Well, occasionally gadded about. The kind of women who made their homes in Vengeance didn’t often conform to the more rigid rules of dress that they might in other towns. Poor boy, he must be new, Natasha mused. She took another sip of her whiskey and waited for the inevitable.

“Excuse you? Did you just imply what I think you did?” Darcy was livid at the insult to Natasha, half leaning over the bar, the movement pulling her attire tighter around her assets than normal. That was only one of Darcy’s oddities as a saloon worker – she tended to dress just as conservatively as she had the day she arrived on the train with the new school marm, Jane Foster. For all that the young woman was as voluptuous as they came, she rarely advertised the fact. Probably for the best, Natasha mused again, considering the way the ranch hand had now been distracted from Natasha’s figure to Darcy’s.

“Well, sure darlin’. Though I ‘spose I could be convinced my coin might be better spent elsewhere, don’ you think?” The ranch hand was clearly dumber than he looked, and he looked like the back end of a mule.

Darcy leaned back, self-consciously adjusting her dress back up over her shoulders in a way that made Natasha ache to gently pull it down again. Natasha reined in her anger over the ranch hand’s leering and Darcy’s subsequent shyness. Darcy could take care of herself, Natasha knew. It was just a matter of time now.

“Look, mister. You’ve now insulted one of our best patrons, as well as myself. Neither one of us are whores, and even if we were, we have higher standards than the likes of you.” Darcy’s voice was just loud enough to carry to the rest of the saloon, and more than a few men were guffawing at the pert little barkeep shooting down the stranger. Darcy wasn’t just Natasha’s favorite, after all. “So, as I said before. Either buy a drink, or get your ass back to the table. Or better yet, out of my bar all together.”

As Natasha had been expecting, the ranch hand did the stupid thing. He lunged out to grab Natasha by the arm, sneering at Darcy as if to dare her to respond.

Unluckily for him, she did.

Darcy took a quick step up and onto the stool kept just behind the bar to aid her when reaching the top shelves. Thus clear of the bar, there came a long snick as she freed the weapon wrapped around her waist and whipped it forward with a crack to snap sharply into the arm of the ranch hand. He yelped and darted back, his hand going to for his pistol. Before he could reach it, Darcy’s whip snicked out again, this time wrapping around his legs tightly. She yanked back, and the ranch hand fell to the floor, his head hitting the ground with a dull thud. He was knocked out cold, Natasha realized with an amused grin.

That bull whip was another of the things people never expected from Darcy. Indeed few had ever realized she carried the thing for a long time; since it seemed to out of place, most never guessed the strip of leather wrapped about her waist was anything other than a simple belt. It was only when Thor Odinson had paid his court to Miss Foster a little too enthusiastically for her taste that Darcy had revealed the strip’s true purpose, putting Odinson to the ground just as she had the unfortunate ranch hand. He’d only laughed and declared the young woman a proper friend to Miss Foster and his sister-in-heart. Darcy had taken it all in stride, as she did everything else.

Odinson still talked about that day when deep in his cups, and the story had only grown with each telling. Darcy thought it ridiculous; Natasha thought it hilarious.

‘Course no one knew where the curvy young woman had learned to use the whip in such a way. It was one of those questions nobody asked in Vengeance. Just as nobody asked where Natasha had gotten her pistols. Same as nobody asked why Doc Banner wasn’t treating patients in some well-to-do city somewhere instead of operating his tiny clinic here in Vengeance.

“Darcy, what did I say about using that whip in my saloon?” Phil’s calm voice calling from above them on the upstairs balcony likely startled everyone in the bar but Natasha and Darcy.

“Don’t break anything and no injuring the customers.” Her voice was just this side of petulant, but she was grinning widely, as was Phil. “But look, nothing’s broken, and he wasn’t buying anything so it’s not like he was a customer.”

“Fair enough. See that it stays that way.” Phil retreated from the balcony edge, and Darcy grinned again.

“Boys, can somebody take out this trash, please?” Darcy called out, and a few of the regulars nodded and stood up, moving to the unconscious ranch hand to drag him out of the bar. The scraping of chairs from the far table warned that at least a few of the man’s friends weren’t exactly pleased.

They were stopped short in their approach to the bar by the tale-tell click as Natasha drew and cocked bock of her pistols in a flash.

“Think twice,” Darcy warned from her side of the bar, pouring another drink into Natasha’s glass. “She gets a might twitchy when people interrupt her drinking.”

One by one, the other ranch hands backed down and filed out of the bar, their friend slung across a pair of shoulders as they drug him out with him. As they left, the regulars relaxed and returned to their seats with a smile and a wave to the pair of women at the bar.

“So,” Darcy began, sliding the glass back to Natasha as she re-holstered her pistols, “where were we?”

“We were drinking, Darcy darlin’. We were drinking.” Natasha toasted Darcy with a flourish, then leaned across to drink from her lover’s lips instead of the glass.

**Author's Note:**

> So I hope Selenay doesn't mind that her gift tacks onto my Welcome-to-Vengeance verse - when I was reading her Fandom Stocking request, this scene between Natasha and Darcy jumped immediately into my head and wouldn't let me go.
> 
> BTW, I decided on a bull whip for Darcy because it was the only period-appropriate non-lethal weapon I could think of that would be capable of knocking down Thor. Plus, leather is sexy. What can ya do? LOL


End file.
